


Birthday with the Aunts

by id_ten_it



Category: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/id_ten_it/pseuds/id_ten_it
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Bertie's first birthday with Jeeves; just as well there's someone to rescue him from his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday with the Aunts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toxictattoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxictattoo/gifts).



> In an attempt to get both the Aunts together. It was a fantastic prompt and I'd love to see what others did with it as well! Happy Yuletide.

I’m always interrupting myself when I start off these things, aren’t I? This time I’ll have a bash at starting not so much from the start as from before the start, giving a sort of run-up, if that’s the right term, and bung in some background, or context as the highly-educated might say. If you’d rather not absorb it all in a solid dose, I recommend taking only the sprinklings that I’ve managed to shoehorn in but of course it always makes more sense to read it all the way through. Do a thorough job of it so to speak.

 

The day had dawned bright and clear, and at just the right time – before I woke but not so far before that I felt I had slept in late enough for Aunts to be in the offing. Jeeves had brought around the tea at precisely the right moment, as always, and had encouraged me in my views regarding the weather by adding his reading of the barometer to the scene. The day was, in actual fact, the 17th of April, and therefore time for the annual celebration of my natal day.

I would like to report that I’d been looking forward to this day for years but truth be told I had not so that would be the sort of inaccuracy which might lead to a farce, like when you tell an Aunt that you appreciate your Christmas present of handkerchiefs and then spend the rest of your life with enough kerchiefs to start your own shop, selling them to other Aunt’s equally delusional about a good kerchief. For a start, it had only been a few months since I had engaged my man Jeeves, and I was concerned that he would be rather inclined to frown disapproval upon the whole affair. Although we hadn’t spoken of it I was keenly aware that our acquaintance had first been made upon his relieving me of the side-effects of indulgence and I wasn’t sure that he didn’t think I was a bit of an ass since I’d done it more than once since then. My reasoning was that with Jeeves to make restorers I was more than safe to any effects alcohol might have.

 

Speaking of restorers, the correct moment to use them was always after a night at the Club. In my particular case, the party at the Drones could hardly be forgone because it promised to be the highlight of the whole day. Nothing quite like a day of cricket, leaping over each others back and splashing about in the swimming pool, followed by a good feed and more than a few snooterfuls of the good stuff splashing about, what? Yet the Joi de Vivre would be sorely missing the day later, the day itself, when my family had announced that they would be descending upon London to rally around and help me celebrate. Well, when the highlight of your day is spending the early hours of the morning with an inebriated Claude and Eustace, a pickled Oofy Prosser and a selection of variously drunk Drones, one knows it’s going to be the sort of day which ends in Aunts. And such it was.

 

 “There’s nothing you can do properly, Bertie, and that includes having a birthday!” Aunt Dahlia had announced over the top of my spluttering protestations. Well of course when an Aunt announces something it matters not how one my splutter and reason, or indeed cajole – if that is indeed the word I think I mean – it will come to pass come rain or hail or stormy weather. So it was that instead of a quiet night at home with a book and a soothing beverage, or perhaps some chums, I was treated to my two aunts, along with the various cousins and offspring that they represented, scattering themselves with a liberal hand throughout my apartment. I entered my room to find it full of  mainly womenfolk, all of them jabbering away at the highest possible speed and volume. I could think of evening that would be worse, but dash it all why me?

 

“Why me, Jeeves?” I asked that shining light of cranial development, who was shimmering around the bestowing cheer and good hospitality everywhere.

“I really couldn’t say sir.” His lips did that oh-so-familiar twitch that suggested he had worked out exactly what the young master was talking about and he agreed somewhat. Which was nice, all in all, since we were moving beyond the initial quite formal, stepping-around-each-other sort of arrangement and moving into what could be best described as a harmonious echo of the discordant life outside. It was good to know that this fish-fed cove was settling down and starting to bend his great powers more wholeheartedly to the Wooster and any of his concerns.

“Well, if you should have any brilliant notions as to why, do let the young master know, won’t you? In the meantime, I should go and beard the lions in their den, so to speak.” And I won’t pretend that I didn’t sigh a little at that.

“A very apt metaphor, if I may be so bold as to say so, sir.”

“You may be, Jeeves! Indeed, you may be so bold as to come along after the young master has begun the barbering business and help out by passing him a stiff drink or two.”

The corner of his mouth creased a little and I took it for a smile, turning to drag my heavy heart with me towards all of the worst of female Christendom.

 

“Perhaps if you’d done a better job with him, Dahlia!” Aunt Agatha’s voice was easily distinguished over the yipping of more human females. I am not a weak man – ask anyone at the Drones and they will agree that I am strong as the solid oak – but upon being threatened with my Aunt Agatha discussing my many shortcomings, I quailed like a little bird. The persp. began to bead on my forehead, and I would be lying to say that I was at all comfortable. Clearly what was about to be embarked upon was a fun-filled family discussion about this particular Wooster, Bertram Wilberforce, and how exactly the last twenty-five years of his life had been a complete and utter failure to the rest of the Wooster clan.

It always struck me as rather unfair, given the many tasks I had undertaken for both my Aunt Agatha (she of the dragon ways) and my far more worthy and yet just as dangerous Aunt Dahlia, that they would still gather with the sole intent of discussing yours truly. I had discussed this phenomenon once or twice with some of my friends but the only one who had been even vaguely interested in my plight was Oofy Prosser. His solution was to spend less money on them and make them make their own Auntly way in the world. Well, I mean to say, what? I thought that was a richer comment than Oofy himself, which was saying a lot!

 

I continued to mingle as society demanded, pressing the flesh like a particularly well-meaning American President up for re-election. Except no American President could possibly hope to be as well dressed as myself after Jeeves had worked his magic on the old penguin suit.

 

I was a little worried about that suit, truth be told. Like the man in one of Jeeves’ gags – you know the one, about the painter liking what he’s seeing and all of that – I was rather aware of all of the assessing looks which were coming my way. I hadn’t been able to get Jeeves to understand that I needn’t be dressed up to the absolute nines in my own flat to entertain my own family but then again I hadn’t really thought that I would be able to. There’s a certain way in which Jeeves looks at you when you begin to talk about clothes and it makes you feel about two inches tall and rather a dunce. He knows all the ins and outs of the sitch, and it gets jolly hard to convince him that he might be wrong.

Well there it was, I was attempting to hide from my aunts (not their voices, understand, I wasn’t trying to do anything impossible!) and also to discourage my cousins and their various friends and relations to eye the Wooster corpus in the manner of particularly hungry dogs eying up a succulent steak.

It was while I was busily engaged downing a cocktail that more of the choice words usually kept for after-dinner, over-the-Port conversation were bellowed at a point just above my head. Sometimes I really think that Aunts go to a different sort of finishing school than anybody else. Probably got their teachers from the ranks of ex Sergeant-Majors, I shouldn’t wonder.

“You cannot expect any reasonable human being to be able to control him!” the nephew-crusher was bellowing, “its simply not possible to do so!”

A bit of a cut to the old organ, which perhaps skipped a beat, but then again it’s skipping could have had more to do with the way in which Angela was resting her hand on my arm to help me with another drink for herself. It is hard to tell, when faced with dangers closing in on every side, where exactly one should look first and with what to arm oneself, for after all what is successful against and Aunt (if anything) is unlikely to be successful against a young lady making designs on one’s person.

“It’s perfectly possible to control him!” Aunt Dahlia was bellowing right back, as though those around were mere hounds to the fox of her sister, “ _You_ merely find it difficult because you do not recognise his sensitive attributes.”

Angela looked at self with an even more assessing gaze than before. I felt rather like the painters were all standing around me with their paint brushes out and arguing over whether or not they liked what they saw.

“Sensitive?!” Aunt Agatha’s derisive snort peeled paint from the walls, “that boy is as sensitive as an old boot, which is about all he needs.” Thankfully at this moment Angela, good egg, was drawn away into another conversation and I escaped into Jeeves’ lair.

 

“Can you hear them, Jeeves?”  
“Mrs Gregson and Mrs Travers, sir?”  
“Of course Mrs Gregson and Mrs Travers Jeeves! No one else is capable of the disregard for human decency than Aunts.” I seated myself on the kitchen table and helped the shaking fingers to a soothing cigarette, offering Jeeves one as well, although he declined with a small moue of disapproval which meant that mine went unlit. “Do you think it’s something they’re tested for, or something they develop, Jeeves?”  
“I really could not say sir.”  
“Down to the psychology of the individual, what?”  
“Precisely sir. Sir, would I be correct in thinking that there has been a recent contretemps that has upset your relatives? Of course it’s not my place…”  
“No no, ask away Jeeves, by all means. The thing is, you see, that I was spotted in the wrong part of town and it’s got the wind up them a bit. You know, of course about my Uncle…?” I trailed off delicately.

Jeeves had more than proved himself in the time he’d been with me but it never pays to assume too much, even upon the head of one such as Jeeves – which just goes to show how very shaken I was because to not trust to Jeeves fish-fed brain is just silly.  
“This would be your other Uncle, sir?” Just as delicate was Jeeves, and I nodded my appreciation.  
“Henry, yes.” I lowered my voice in deference to the subject which was not one which anybody on the other side of my comfortable kitchen swing-door would like to know we were discussing, and continued.

“I was of the understanding he had had a particular fondness for those creatures in the _Leporidae_ family?” At my blank look he added, “the domestic rabbit, sir.”  
“Oh ah! Leporidae. Quite. Well there I was quite happily toddling along, thinking of this and that, you know how it is, and bam if there shouldn’t come into my path a cat. Well, I say a cat, it was more along the lines of a kitten. I couldn’t just leave it there, could I Jeeves?”  
“No sir.”  
“No sir indeed! So I toddled along to that collection of pet shops across from Oxford Street and there I was spotted by none other than Honoria Glossop. Having picked myself up from her customary greeting, I felt no compunction in explaining that I had been to the pet shop. Except this information has obviously returned to her father and thence to my Aunts who are now arguing about whether or not they could have saved me from the fate of good old Uncle Henry.” I shuddered, “on top of which Angela is eyeing up the corpus as though she was said kitten and hadn’t been fed for a month of Sundays.” In my distraction I ate a sandwich which I think had been intended for Jeeves’ dinner, “do you think I could ankle around to the Drones for a bit, Jeeves?”  
He made the sort of face that meant he was thinking deeply and I nibbled the sandwich more slowly, now more than ever convinced I was stealing my man’s dinner.

 

“Where is the louse?” Aunt Dahlia’s variety of pet names were never far from getting me into trouble and I twitched, endangering life and limb as I ended up on the other side of the kitchen. If the lighting had been any brighter I might have been able to see if Jeeves had smiled but I’m sure it wasn’t the case. Jeeves, after all, never smiles.

“I have a better solution, sir. Return to the party and I shall see that you are allowed to leave.”

It’s dashed near impossible to argue with Jeeves when he says things like that, even if you wanted to – and I certainly didn’t want to! Dutifully therefore, I retired to the bosom of my family, where I was received with more insults and suggestions that I was in some way negligent. I was interrupted in these insults by the ringing of the telephone and Jeeves, impeccable as always in his uniform, oiling out of the kitchen to answer it. In a similarly unobtrusive manner, he glided over to me.

“Excuse me, madam.” I have no idea how he always sounds so respectful to the aged As, but there you have it. No doubt he has to show respect to everybody. Feudal spirit and all that. Grasping me by the elbow he pulled me away a moment. “Sir, “ he murmured, just loudly enough for the relatives to overhear, “I’m afraid there has been an accident and you are required at the hospital. Allow me to get your coat….” He led me like a lamb, adding in my ear that now I should make good my escape, and that he would tidy everything up. So saying, he tipped me out of the flat and into the blessed freedom of a London fog.

 

 ***

 

The only difficulty with being left to wander on one’s own in London is that it’s so deuced hard knowing where to go. I should have loved to go to the Drones and drown my sorrows there but two things prevented me from following through with this plan. Firstly the image of Jeeves, brain simmering with a clever plan or other seeking the young master and finding him incapable of performing his task and secondly Aunts bearing down upon a sacred, aunt-free environment to reveal I was no longer at the hospital but rather knocking back a dozen or so of the best. It was hard to decide whether the Aunts or Jeeves were more of a motivating factor in this fear. Instead of the Drones therefore, I loitered in the garage where the two-seater was kept.

 There I sat, amongst the other vehicles, smoking a ruminative cigarette, glancing at my pocket-watch every minute or so. Eventually I decided that enough time had gone by that I could safely ring up the flat and ask Jeeves what he wanted me to do. “Jeeves I say!” I began my sally to the telephone with.

 

***

 

“You say that there was an accident, Jeeves?” Aunt Agatha’s voice was particularly cutting.  
“Indeed madam. Unfortunately one of his friends suffered a fall from some height and has requested that Mr Wooster be with him.”  
“Then perhaps, Jeeves…” here Aunt Dahlia approached poor old Jeeves, the two of them circling him like buzzards thinking about pulling out the old bib and setting in for a tasty meal….”perhaps you could explain to us why the blot is currently on the phone.”  
“I really could not say, madam. Perhaps I could speak with him and ascertain why?” Jeeves’ face remained as inscrutable as ever, I should imagine. I couldn’t imagine Jeeves getting even a little flustered at the idea but I like to think that perhaps, for just a moment, there was a pang in his feudal breast. Whatever he felt the next moment we were having a hasty discourse whilst the two Aunts, no doubt, paced like dragons who have just seen the innocent young maiden and are planning which part of her to devour first.

“How is your friend, Mr Wooster?”  
“My friend? What on earth’s do you mean, man? You know as well as I do that I have no need to be at the hospital. My friends are all of fine health and cheerful countenance, if that means what I think it means.”  
“I am saddened to hear that sir. Perhaps if you were to – “  
“Jeeves cut this ridiculous babble. I want to come home. Today has been a trying one and this dashed garage is about as comfortable as a…well it’s deuced uncomfortable.”  
“I shall pass on the information sir. Sir, Mrs Travers and Mrs Gregson were desirous of seeing you again before they departed.”  
“Eh Gads Jeeves you think I want to talk with them?! You really are….by George they’re not still at the flat are they? Heavens…I jolly well will stay out here. Only it’s so very uncomfortable. Err…they’re not still harping on about failures past are they?” If there was a sniffle in my voice it was surely a manly one.  
“I regret to say yes sir. I shall bring you some supplies if you wait where you are.”  
“That’s dashed kind of you Jeeves. Dashed kind.”

 

He won’t tell me quite what he told the Aunts but a day later we were in France and I don’t know if it wasn’t the best trip away I’d had. 


End file.
